What’s interesting to note is that the criminal shooter was shot while he was reloading – he had the intention and means to continue shooting and possibly kill/wound more people in the bar, but instead someone who was there and carrying ended the threat.

So as a quick review:

No bystanders shot by guy with CCW permit

No raging gunbattle spilling into the streets

The police were pretty easily able to distinguish the good guy from the bad guy (hint: the bad guy was the dead one)

The good guy had a gun in a bar, which according to the Brady Bunch is a surefire way to kill dozens and dozens of innocent people.

Honestly, this is pretty self-explanatory, I’m also amused by what amounts to a total lack of media coverage on this. Imagine if the CCW holder hadn’t been there, and the shooter had killed four or five more people; this story would be leading the news.

Unc keeps a list of all the times that armed citizens have been on hand to stop violent mass shooters before they turned into mass shooters – while anecdotes != data, it is very handy to be able to refer to actual incidents whenever someone on the anti-gun side brings up Columbine or VA Tech.

The other interesting item related to the shooting is the amount of hysterics that it’s introduced amongst a small set of people. Robb has a fantastic post up on debunking the op-ed about how the CCW holder should have tackled the guy or whacked him with a beer bottle. He quite accurately points out that life is not a movie, and people are rarely knocked unconscious with a beer bottle to the head.

Firearms in the hands of private citizens save lives – I am a big supporter of police, but the reality of the situation is that it would have taken them some time before they arrived at the bar where the shooting took place, and in that time more lives would have been lost.

The difference between pro and anti-gun factions is actually kind of subtle in situations like this, because anti gun people still want to be protected by a brave person with a firearm; the difference is that you or I believe that person can be Joe Everyman, and the anti-gun people want him or her to have a badge.

I am 100% certain that had there been no one on the scene and the murderer had continued to kill people that I would be SWAMPED under coverage, as it is since he was stopped by an armed citizen, I’ve heard exactly squat from major media outlets.